PTC planners want to save more trees

The Peachtree City Planning Commission wants to enhance the city’s landscaping ordinance by limiting the amount of “tree save credit” that can be used on a given site.

One idea discussed at Monday’s commission meeting would require a number of developers in the future to plant trees in other areas of the city such as right of way and other city-owned property where reforestation is needed, such as parks.

The change would come to the city’s existing tree save credit system. The tree save credit is generally applied in cases where the developer has worked to save existing trees of significant size on the property and there also is no room on the site to plant the additional trees required by the ordinance.

The commission will work with city staff to look at a potential significant reduction in the tree save credit from up to 50 percent to perhaps no more than 10 percent. The theory is that the reduction could result in the city benefitting from the planting of new trees that otherwise would not happen due to site plan circumstances.

The commission is also planning to examine an increase of the size requirements for meeting the understory and canopy tree guidelines of the landscaping ordinance.

Commissioner Frank Destadio noted that there were several areas in the city that he was aware of which could use some new trees. Community Services Director Jon Rorie suggested that the recreation park in the Braelinn Village area, off Log House Road, would be a great place to add more trees, and there are also places along the parkway where new trees need to be established to take the place of older ones.

Mayor Don Haddix, who routinely attends planning commission meetings as an audience member, noted that he would like the city to prioritize replacing trees that have died or fallen first.